In his early years, Minne produced both expressively sculpted images and more contemplative figures. Around 1897, the typical figures of kneeling, mourning, or injured figures from his earlier oeuvre underwent a process of purification and abstraction, as seen in the more stylized and refined figure of the kneeling youth, Minne's best-known sculpture. In the famous Fountain of the Kneeling Youths, he arranged five identical copies around a water basin with a controlled rhythm of straight or curved lines and surfaces.
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